As I have not really made a proper blog post here, I thought I would do it today! And this time I will briefly discuss my drawing Matemaatikko (engl. Mathematician) that I finished this spring.

This drawing was something I’ve wanted to make for many years. I started my maths studies in 2016 (almost 10 years ago, wow), and during all these years I have accumulated so many notebooks and test papers full of math problems and proofs, and wanted to do something with them. My original idea started within the first few years of collecting these papers, thinking I could make a collage with all this paper, maybe make a portrait of a mathematician — wishing that the mathematician would be me in the future — or maybe use the contents on these pages to create a unique type of cross hatching using just math equations.

So this February as I knew I was going to an atelier to draw, I took a quick picture (or multiple, actually) of myself in the morning, still looking fairly sleepy and hair a bit messy. It wasn’t the best picture of me ever, but I didn’t care to look as perfect as possible. I had decided that I was going to be the mathematician in the picture. It only felt fitting, to make this drawing I’ve been wanting to make for years, and make it for myself of myself. I consider it as a little graduation gift to myself.

I picked up my pencils of 4B-4H hardnesses, a piece of A3 size paper and got to work.

I had some trouble with the face at first; it had been a while since I had drawn a realistic portrait of a human being, and actually wanted to be accurate. Recently I haven’t been caring as much about getting the likeness of a person, as I find the process of drawing and creating more fun that way, but for this one I wanted to make it as accurate as possible. I had most trouble getting the eyes right, and while I don’t think it is all quite correct in the end, I’m still very happy with what I got in the end! It took me about 2-3 hours finishing the face from sketching stage to the end, while working here and there on the hair or the shirt.

Thinking about the cross hatching idea using text, I felt like it was too hard to do that on the face as it was fairly small (I might do that for a larger close up portrait at some point!), I started using the text on the shirt.

Instead of going through the several folders and notebooks of homework and tests (I tried) I chose to write quotes from some of the math course books I had bought over the years. The first book was Analyysia reaaliluvuilla (my loose translation is “Analysis with real numbers”) by Petteri Harjulehto, Riku Klèn & Mika Koskenoja. I used mainly the basic axioms and theorems about real numbers in the first few chapters, and did not add many quotes from any chapters beyond that.

If I remember right, my original thought was to imagine this shirt as the foundation from which the mathematician grows from, or as a cloth that makes the person a mathematician — what is a mathematician without math? Just another naked human being among others! I didn’t give much thought to the shape of the shirt, nor did I feel like writing the text like it was the weave of the shirt. It just kept writing, and in the end it looks like a fun texture from afar.

When I originally started my maths studies, I struggled a lot. I didn’t enjoy analysis that much, and most of the base level courses I found to be boring and not as interesting. I wasn’t getting great grades as a result. But then I took an algebra course on a whim, looking for inspiration, and I found a spark! After that I learned there was a masters programme in algebra, topology and geometry, and instantly wanted to learn more.

Learning about algebra and topology made me remember my original love for mathematics, so it was important for me to add some text about these topics. So I went through my two favorite course books on topology, Topologia I and Topologia II  by Jussi Väisälä. I wrote these lines with a pencil that had more hardness, so the text is fainter and looks like it is shadows behind the lines about real numbers.

When I started drawing the face and the shirt, I had only a faint idea of the background. I drew a few thumbnails to see what I’d like. I originally thought I would also add math to the background as it’d make the face pop out more, bring more focus on the person, but as I was drawing the shirt I realized it was not going to work. I did not want the shirt and background blend in so much this time. The face was quite small compared to the space around it, so I felt like it’d look more like a man drowning in text than a mathematician.

So I took some inspiration of another piece I made this year, Untitled drawing inspired by M.C. Escher’s work.

I really liked coloring in the space, and drawing the different geometrical and topological objects (as well as a Tetris piece).

I used a similar flowing layout of cosmic fog in space, as if there was some fabric or water flowing across and around the space with stars thrown in. As the Mathematician drawing was a lot bigger than the Untitled drawing, I was able to add many more stars and mathematical objects as I liked.

I thought I’d add whatever objects at first in the background. I wrote a list: Rubik’s cubes, Möbius strips and Klein bottles; as references to the algebra and topology topics I had studied. But then I thought about the Platonic solids, found some pictures of them and their intersections, and found them to be a good challenge for me to draw! I hadn’t practiced drawing and shading some of the basic shapes in ages, so I thought I would smash even more challenges into this drawing.

One little extra thing I did with the background, was make some of the stars form constellations in the shapes of a square, a triangle and one simple line with two stars in each end. I thought it would be a neat way to throw some 2D objects in there too.

I really enjoyed drawing the background, I loved figuring out where to space out each star, and how to balance the light and the dark of the objects and the background. But, it was quite difficult trying not to smudge the graphite on the white parts of the paper. Having an extra sheet of paper between my hand and the main paper helped a lot!

But, when I was coming to the end of the three months that I was working on this drawing, I was already so done with it. I did not want to work any more on it, while also wanting to perfect everything in it. I knew I would never finish the drawing if I kept perfecting it, so I stopped and took a moment. I let the drawing sit for a couple of weeks (which worked out nicely with a trip I took), and then went back to staring at it.

I realized, while it was me in the drawing, and I had made it, it didn’t feel like me. It was missing something. Looking back at my other recent drawings, and the Untitled drawing, I then thought of adding one of my little figures in it. So I cut out some figures in different poses and sizes, and posed them over the drawing, changing their placement every now and then for a few days.

I was feeling pretty anxious committing to glueing them in place, and kept changing things up, swapping the figures and their spots (the one peeking over the shoulder being in a breast pocket for example), and ended up pulling out some colored papers. I used my white cutouts to make the colored ones the same sizes, and then used a random permanent marker for the lineart and eyes of the figures.

And I’d say it all turned out quite nice! I of course could have improved it in many different ways, the details of the face, the contrast of the piece, the background, the use of color etc., but all in all, I think it looks fun and I’m happy to be done with it!

I wish to make more math related works in the future, maybe some that are less on the nose with the math, but we will see!